The Dragon and the Maiden
by Colleen
Summary: Kaoru is the maiden, guess who the dragon is. Reposted with a new chapter.
1. Part One

****

Warning: This is a fusion of Rurouni Kenshin, Vivian Vande Velde's Dragon's Bait and several other dragon and maiden books and movies. If you don't like, don't read.

Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin. I also do not own Vivian Vande Velde's Dragon's Bait, Patricia C Wrede's Dealing with Dragon's and it's many sequels, Dragonheart, Dragonslayer, any fairy tales that may pop up or the dragon and princess book that I read in grade four that I no longer remember the name of (Although it may or may not have been called 'The Dragon's Princess'). In other words if you recognize it (and possibly even if you don't) then I don't own it. So live with it, because I do. RK and the other stories are the property of their respective owners. I'm just writing this for fun (it's fanfiction, it's supposed to be fun) and will make no money from it. Please do not sue me. You really wouldn't get anything anyway.

This is being reposted because someone didn't understand that this is a fusion. Also I goofed and put the full disclaimer in Part Two originally and I guess they didn't look.

Summary: Kaoru is the maiden, guess who the dragon is. 

Rating: PG-13 

The Dragon and the Maiden 

By Colleen

Part One

****

The Maiden

Kaoru struggled against the ropes that bound her to the stake. Her wrists had already been rubbed raw by her attempts to escape and the ropes binding her were slowly being soaked with her blood. Despite the pain she pulled harder, hoping that the cords would loosen or that with enough blood as a lubricant she could slip free of them. 

How could they do this to her?

She pulled again, crying out in pain and effort, then slumped in her bounds. It was no use, they had tied her well and there still wasn't any give to the rope. She looked off into the darkness, eyes seeking out the village where she had lived her entire life. The moon, three quarters full, and her position on a hill a little ways out of town gave her enough light and height to make out the rooftops of the town's houses. She closed her eyes, once again in pain although this hurt was in her heart and not her abused body. 

How could they?

Of course the answer was, they were scared. In fact the entire countryside had been gibbering in terror for the last few months. 

Dragons tended to do that to people.

She had felt the same terror the first time she'd seen it wheel across the sky. Her fear mixed with awe at the creature's beauty and power had left her on her knees when her legs had given out.

There had been dragons before, but never one this large. It was also the first one that had ever managed to avoid the hunters that the villager elders hired to kill and trap it. 

She gave a bitter laugh at the thought. You would think it would be easy to locate something that was larger than half the houses in the village combined. Just how difficult could it be to come across a monster that was taller than the tallest tree with scales that reflected green and purple in the sunlight? That and the red markings she had been able to see even at a distance should have made the creature at least findable.

Instead the hunters came back tired and frustrated, except for the pair that never came back at all. She shuddered at the thought, realizing that their fate would soon be hers. 

It had been those missing hunters and the dragon's reappearance that had pushed the villagers to do what they had done. The beast had come, roaring in apparent fury as it moved gracefully through the sky. The villagers found out the hard way just how dangerous it was to anger a dragon. He'd used his fire and while no one had been hurt or killed one of the blasts had ignited several of the rice paddies that the town depended on for food. 

Terrified that the monster would soon destroy the village or the rest of their food stock the town's elders decided to placate the creature with an offering. Which is how Kamiya Kaoru ended up tied to a stake awaiting a grizzly death. 

She wasn't actually upset or angry that she was about to give her life to save her village. No what enraged her was that the other villagers, people she had grown up with and thought of as friends, hadn't even had the decency to ask her to volunteer. Instead they had ganged up against her, tying her up and gagging her before dragging her out to this lonely hill and fixing her to a stake that had already been set up. 

No one had tried to help her, the rest of the townspeople had barely even looked at her.

She knew why they had chosen her. She had no family. Her mother had died when she was young and her father had succumbed last winter to a cough in his lungs that had never gotten any better. And although she was old enough to marry she had not entertained any suitors since her father's death. She had no ties to anyone and that more than the fact that she was a maiden had probably decided her fate for her.

There would be no one to miss her. No one to avenge her. 

After they'd left her she spent the first thirty minutes or so scraping the side of her face against the wood pole she was attached to. It was painful but she was eventually able to work the gag from her mouth. She spent the thirty minutes after that yelling as loudly as she could towards the village. 

At times Kaoru's temper knew no limits and she would have gleefully kept the barrage of insults and curses going but it occurred to her that being staked out and yelling was probably a good way to get noticed by large scaly things that planned to eat you. So instead she turned her attention towards getting free. 

That had been hours ago.

She forcefully stopped herself from looking towards her former home again and instead looked up at the moon and stars. It would probably be the last time she would ever see them. She sighed, saddened that she wouldn't get the chance to see the full moon. But then, there were a lot of things she would not be seeing. 

Kaoru started to work at the ropes again. Really, she was ready to give up but every time she stopped she found herself thinking about how she would be dieing. Of course it would be painful but she did hope that it would at least be quick. Beyond that she tried not to consider just how her end would be. The thought of being either burned alive or ripped apart and eaten while still aware had the ability to sent her into screaming hysterics. And she'd be damned if she would fall apart now. 

Even if there was no one to see her she refused to give into her fear. She would face this with courage and dignity and she would go to her death with more of both of those qualities than the people who had placed her here would ever have.

She smiled a small sad smile and looked up again to view the moon. It must have slid behind a cloud because she could no longer find it in the night's sky. She tilted her head higher and saw the stars spread out in all their glory, without a cloud in sight to cover them. 

Her heart gave a little lurch and she looked back to where the moon should have been. Whatever was blocking it was either getting larger or closer as moment by moment the stars that had been nearest the moon blinked out like a snuffed candle. 

No cloud, it was instead a mass of glistening scale, sharp teeth and even sharper claws. Kaoru's breath caught in her throat as the dragon came, blocking the night sky with its sheer size. 

The trees around the hill started to bend in the breeze caused by the fire serpent's wings. A barrage of dirt and grass blew up around Kaoru and she was forced to squeeze her eyes shut to avoid being blinded by the debris. When the wind settled she opened them to find herself face to teeth with the dragon. 

She closed her eyes again, fear overriding all of her senses. She might have kept them that way but when the seconds went by and nothing happened she opened them again, the not knowing being worse than the knowing. 

The dragon had tilted its head down so now when she looked at it again she was staring into the largest pair of eyes she had ever seen. They were amber and should have been reptile like, but weren't. What they were was incredibly angry.

The eyes were the last straw and Kaoru's body started to shake with all the pent up fear and grief she'd stored up over the last few hours. "Please," she whispered, hanging her head so she wouldn't have to look into those eyes, "just make it quick."

The dragon let out an enraged cry and wrapped its claws around Kaoru and the wood post. With a quick yank it pulled the pole out of the ground. A leap and a flap of its wings had it airborne with Kaoru and the stake held in its grasp. 

Kaoru's stomach lurched as they took off. Thankfully she was spared the sight of the ground falling away as the dragon's throat and chest took up most of her vision. She wondered where it was taking her and worse, what it would do with her once they got there. 

The fact that it hadn't already killed her terrified her. The only reason she could think of for still being alive was that the creature liked to play with its food. Bad enough she would be eaten but if the dragon decided to it could make her death a living hell. One of the thoughts that had terrified her earlier was that the creature might keep her alive while it took her apart limb by limb, stretching her out as a meal while enjoying her pain. 

These horrifying thoughts would have followed her the entire trip had the dragon's flight not dipped a few times. Sudden airsickness claimed her and she gulped, happy for the first time that day that she had had nothing to eat since the morning. While it would serve the dragon right if she ended up throwing up on it she didn't want to make it any madder than it already was. 

The flight seemed to take forever but in reality was probably only a few minutes in length. The foothills that surrounded the village of Kaoru's birth led up into the mountains and that was where the dragon took her. About a third of the way up the dragon dove towards the trees. Kaoru could hear the occasional scrap of pine boughs against scale when the dragon ventured a little to close to the greenery. If Kaoru had been turned the other way she would have seen the forest open onto a small clearing. The trees had held back in that area to encircled a small pond that was fed by a waterfall. To the left of the falls was a huge cave, easily large enough for the dragon to live in. 

Wings beating backward to slow it's decent the dragon landed near the pond. It opened its claws and Kaoru and the stake tumbled out. She landed painfully on her side, though it would have been worse if she had fallen in any other position. The dragon stared quizzically at her for a moment before it turned and lumbered into the cave.

Kaoru lay there and worked at breathing. Even though she was down on the ground her body had yet to let go of the motion of flight and her head and stomach were still reeling from the experience. 

Sensation came back to her a bit at a time. The grass against her cheek was noticed first, then the sound of water falling over rock. Smell and sight would have followed but her arms and legs, held in one position for far to long, chose that moment to clamp up. Gritting her teeth in pain she stretched her muscles out against the spasms as best she could while being tied to a pole 

When her limbs stopped protesting she started to work at her bonds again, hoping that the recent rough handling might have loosened the ropes. 

The cords were just starting to give when she felt a pair of eyes looking down at her from behind. Kaoru's breath froze in her throat when she realized that the only set of eyes around here belonged to the dragon. She hadn't even heard him approach and given his size he should have shaken the ground as he walked. 

She waited; body tensed and ears straining in an attempt to discern what was happening behind her. She flinched at the noise when it came, though she was uncertain what had caused it. It did however remind her of the sound a knife blade makes when drawn across a wetting stone. Her mouth lost what little moisture it had with the thought that the dragon was sharpening its claws. 

The air at her back was displaced suddenly and she barely had time to register the sound of the wind that was created as something slashed down towards her. She pulled in a breath to scream but never managed to voice it. Instead she rolled free of the stake and found herself face down, attempting to inhale grass. 

She staggered to her feet, cut rope shedding from her body like a bird moulting its feathers. She straightened painfully and looked up expecting to see the dragon still staring at her.

Her mouth dropped open in stunned amazement when the sight that greeted her was not a large scaly creature but a small redheaded man.

The first thing that struck her was that he was very beautiful. In fact he would have been almost feminine looking were it not for a large cross shaped scar on his left cheek. His eyes were a lovely shade of violet and his red hair cascaded freely down his back and around his shoulders, emphasising his slight form and height, though he was taller than she was. The man was dressed in an old magenta gi and white hakama, both of which had seen better days. He carried a sword at his left side and Kaoru realized with a start that the blade being drawn was the source of the noise she had heard earlier. 

The girl fell to her knees and touched her forehead to the ground. Words of gratitude tumbled from her lips as she thanked the samurai, for that was what he had to be. Given the fact that he only had one sword then he must be ronin but even a master less samurai was still of a higher rank than a peasant girl without family. 

"Don't."

Kaoru looked up at the samurai. "Excuse me?" She asked politely. 

"Don't thank me," he said.

"Why?...... And then she looked into his eyes. The warm purple hue was briefly shaded over with the anger filled amber that she had seen in the dragon's eyes earlier. Shocked she crab- walked backwards a few feet, her motion only stopped when she ran into a boulder. 

The redhead looked down at Kaoru like she was some odd bug he had come across in his garden. "I suggest you clean up a little," he said, waving a hand towards the waterfall. "When you are done come into the cave and I will find you something to eat and a place to sleep." He turned to head towards the cave and continued talking to Kaoru without looking at her. "I would not suggest trying to escape. It would be very difficult to get down this mountain in the dark and I would have no trouble catching you again," he looked back at her, "However I would be very unhappy to have to go chasing after you," amber flickered in his eyes again as he said this. He turned back to the cave entrance and walked towards it leaving a stunned Kaoru still sitting on the ground with her back up against a large rock. 

She suddenly understood why it was so difficult to find the dragon. When chasing a large reptile you would hardly connect it with the small man that had just left her. She pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her head on them. 

The dragon was a man. No, that wasn't right. The dragon was a dragon that could take on the shape of a man. Yes, that was it. Damn, what should she do?

She slowly got to her feet and headed off into the bushes a little ways to take care of a pressing need to go to the bathroom. She then headed to the waterfall. After washing her hands she pulled the top of her kimono down. She splashed water over her face and arms then cupped her hands into the water's flow so she could bring the liquid to her lips, drinking greedily. When she had quenched her thirst she pulled her clothing back on over her wet flesh and headed towards the cave. 

Actually she stomped over to the cave. Taking care of a few necessities had given her enough confidence to let her temper come to the fore. Mostly she was angry with her self for brainlessly following her captor's orders. That and the helplessness of her situation could easily overwhelm her if she didn't focus her emotions somewhere else. 

Her temper powered her through the entrance and into the cave proper. The main part of it was huge; the light from the few paper lanterns hung along the walls was lost in the sheer size of the space. She could see that smaller, room like areas had been carved into the cavern's walls by the processes that had created the cave in the first place. Lantern light flickered from one of these places and she headed for it.

It had promised her something to eat. Her steps faltered for a moment as she wondered if it was just feeding her in order to fatten her up before the kill. She pushed the thought aside with enough force to cause a headache and entered the smaller cave. 

It was really quite pleasant. 

Tatami mats were set in a square the size of a large room. A low table, with the promised food on it, sat off to the side. In the living area there were several cushions for sitting on, a lacquered screen to block off part of the grotto and two futons laid out side by side. 

Kaoru found herself staring at those two beds on the ground. A new even more horrifying thought than all the others came to her, one she wouldn't have even considered if it wasn't for the fact that the dragon was also a man. 

Why, she wondered, why do dragons always want maidens? 

Kaoru concentrated on breathing while she tried to tell herself that she was worrying over nothing. She was getting far to good at coming up with worse case scenarios for her situation. 

"After you have eaten you can sleep there."

Kaoru jumped when he spoke, once again not having heard him come up behind her. She turned to thank him but the words stuck in her throat and her body started to shake at the sight of him.

He was NAKED!

End of Part One


	2. Part Two

****

Warning: This is a fusion of Rurouni Kenshin, Vivian Vande Velde's Dragon's Bait and several other dragon and maiden books and movies. If you don't like, don't read.

Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin. I also do not own Vivian Vande Velde's Dragon's Bait, Patricia C Wrede's Dealing with Dragon's and it's many sequels, Dragonheart, Dragonslayer, any fairy tales that may pop up or the dragon and princess book that I read in grade four that I no longer remember the name of (Although it may or may not have been called 'The Dragon's Princess'). In other words if you recognize it (and possibly even if you don't) then I don't own it. So live with it, because I do. RK and the other stories are the property of their respective owners. I'm just writing this for fun (it's fanfiction, it's supposed to be fun) and will make no money from it. Please do not sue me. You really wouldn't get anything anyway.

Summary: Kaoru is the Maiden, guess who the Dragon is.

Rating: PG-13

The Dragon and the Maiden

By Colleen

Part Two

****

The Dragon

The dragon in the shape of a man kept Kaoru in view from the mouth of the cave until he was certain she was not going to bolt. He relaxed when she went over to the waterfall to clean up as he'd suggested. The man watched as she stripped the top of her kimono down so she could wash and for reasons he couldn't quite understand found that he was tracing her skin with his eyes. He blinked and shook his head, shocked as always at his reaction to her. 

He moved inside and dished up some of the rice and pickles he had had left over from dinner. She was lucky he had been in human form lately and had felt the need for such fare. As a dragon he was a pure carnivore and what food he could have offered her then would hardly have been palatable for a human.

After setting the food out on the table he went and dragged the two futons he owned out of storage and laid them out. His nose wrinkled at the musty smell of the beds and he made a mental note to hang them and the rest of the bedding outside the next day so they could air out. He had a tendency to forget to do that since he didn't use them very often.

With everything set out he went behind the screen to strip for bed and put away his clothing and sword in a chest that sat behind the panels. While doing this he heard the girl come in and he stepped out to meet her. 

She had her back to him and was staring intently at the futons. Even with his human senses he could tell she was upset about them. Really, he didn't think they were that bad, musty though they might be. She would just have to make do.

"After you have eaten you can sleep there," he told her.

The girl gave a little jump. She'd been so interested in the futons she hadn't heard him come up behind her. She turned to him and opened her mouth. He suspected she had intended to say something but her jaw seemed to have lost its usual support as her mouth just hung open and she started making small noises in the back of her throat. 

Perhaps she was just unwell. It couldn't be very healthy to have been tied to a stake all day like that and she did seem to have a case of the chills as her body was shaking. He reached out to touch her face to see if she had a fever. 

The woman jerked away from him so hard that she went over backwards and landed fully laid out on the bed. He looked down at her, noticing that her breathing had become ragged. He knelt at her feet then crawled up her body so he could touch his hand to her forehead. She flinched, shuddering worse than before and he wondered if he had hurt her. Perhaps it was just the coolness of his hand as her face was hot and turning an alarming shade of red.

How did one care for a sick human anyway? He had never been unwell while he was in human form and illnesses in dragons were rare and usually only occurred in very old age. He did remember his godfather being sick and he was human, sort of. Now what did he do for it? Oh, right.

"Do you need medicine?" The dragon asked the girl.

Now she was looking at him like he was insane, and yet it seemed a perfectly reasonable question. She was sick after all.

"What?" She asked him, her voice hoarse. 

"You seem to be ill. Your face is all red and you're shaking so I thought you might need some medicine." 

Her mouth was doing that hanging open thing again but this time it didn't last long. The girl gave a shriek worthy of a banshee and planted her left fist into the dragon's right cheek. He really could have avoided it but she was angry enough already. He allowed the punch to land. 

And land it did. He skidded backwards a good two metres and lay there staring up at the cave's ceiling idly wondering why it was spinning like that. He shook his head in an attempt to relieve the dizziness and lurched back to his feet.

The dragon rubbed at his sore cheek and frowned at the enraged maiden standing before him. Inside he was smiling, happy that his impressions of her were correct. She truly was a strong woman. 

However, at his expression her anger seemed to bleed away and something else took its place, something that the redhead didn't like. He had seen that look on other faces before and at his worse enjoyed it. On her it felt as if someone had reached a hand inside his chest and was attempting to rip his heart out. He'd rather see her enraged than that. 

"So, I take it that you are not sick then?" He asked her, smiling sweetly.

Really her temper was impressive. 

"Sick," she shrieked, "That wasn't because I'm sick, that was because you're naked."

He looked down at himself, not understanding. "How does my being naked make your face turn red?"

That must have been the wrong question to ask because she had a resurgence of the open mouth problem and seemed to be having trouble breathing again. Worse her face was taking on an even deeper shade of red than it had before. 

The maiden cleared her throat and looked away from him. "Could you please just not be naked?" She asked.

He considered it briefly but shook his head no. "I don't have anything large enough to sleep in," he said.

"But," she said, looking as if she was casting around desperately for a good reason (or something to cover him with) and coming up short. "I... I can't sleep there if you're naked," she said, waving a hand towards the futons.

Really this woman was perplexing. Tomoe had never been as strange as this when they were together. Of course she had been a dragon, not human. Human females were obviously more different than he had expected.

"I really do not understand why you would not be able to sleep there if I am naked. It is not as if I will be sleeping with you."

Do all human women have trouble with their jaws hanging open or was it just her?

"Then why," the girl asked him, her eyes cast firmly at the ground, "did you put out two beds?"

The dragon looked at the beds and then back at Kaoru. He shrugged, "because I had two of them so I put both of them out. Just one of them always seems too small to me."

"Oh."

The redhead was definitely getting tired of her looking at the ground and not at him. With a little sigh he brushed past her and went around the screen to grab his yukata from the chest. He quickly put it on and stepped back out, tying the belt as he did.

"Is this better?"

"Ah yes, thank you." The girl still wouldn't look at him completely, her gaze kept sliding away from him but at least it was better than before.

"You should eat and then try to get some sleep. If you need me I will be in the deeper caves. Just yell, the echo will reach me." 

She nodded and went over and knelt down at the table. The dragon stood by the entrance, waiting for her to start before heading to bed. He watched as she picked up the chopsticks and carefully began eating the food. He left as soon as her hunger took over and she was shovelling it in. At least he wouldn't have to worry about her starving herself. 

He padded his way through the cavern to the lair he liked to bed down in. The trip there gave him time to think, which really was a very bad thing to do just before trying to sleep.

That hadn't gone well. 

It seemed humans had a bigger problem about clothing than he'd realized. True he wore them when he was in human form but that was just practical. People were rather fragile things. And he'd gotten use to the garments he wore when he'd lived with his godfather for a few years. The man had insisted he learn how to wear them, however he hadn't had any problem with the young dragon being naked before changing to go to bed. Of course the wizard was a man, maybe it was different for females?

The dragon let out a sigh. What was he going to do with her? He was more perplexed by her in the short time they'd been together than he'd been by anything in his entire life. 

'Keep her,' a voice inside him said. 'They gave her to you, she's yours, so keep her.' He shook his head, annoyed with himself. They had no right to do that to Kaoru, no right to do that to anyone and he wouldn't use that as some warped excuse to keep her. The voice tried a new tactic. 'You've wanted her since you saw her, she's the reason you've stayed, despite the hunters, the reason your spending so much time in human form.' All true but it changed nothing, as he never intended to approach her. As much as she fascinated and drew him there was an equal force that seemed to push him away. She was a human and he was a dragon and the two didn't mix well. 'Your parents didn't seem to think so.' 

ENOUGH.

He reached the sandy area that he liked to sleep in and yanked the yukata off, throwing it to the ground in a bunched up ball. He'd regret that in the morning but right now he was too angry to bother folding it properly. He gave his body a shake, trying to rid himself of the emotion. Then he changed. 

It was a lot like stretching. At least that was how it always felt to him. And it wasn't just his body and muscles that moved but his mind and senses as well. As he grew from one shape to the other he felt his awareness expand. While the ki he could sense in human form would amaze and astound others it was poor when compared to what he could feel as a dragon. 

The world sang with energy. All of his senses hummed along with the tune, happy to hear it once again. His mind followed the melody as it wound its way through his home until it reached the girl, now already asleep in the smaller caves. 

He listened to the music her spirit made; fascinated by the strength that he could feel living in her mind if not in her body. Not that there was anything wrong with her body. 

The dragon snapped that train of thought off right there.

Now incredibly huge he nestled down in the sand to sleep, closing his eyes and attempting to think of nothing. Instead he found his thoughts returning to the first time he had seen the girl. He sighed and let it play out, hoping that going through it once would be enough to for it to let him go so he could get some sleep.

************

Several months ago

Even though night had already fallen the streets were still busy. People shouting, drinking and playing games jostled him at every turn and he didn't know why he was putting up with it. For one of his kind the crush of humanity was annoying at the best of times but during a festivals it could be pure hell.

So why was he here?

Except in the case of mated pairs his race was a solitary one, not given to socializing with each other much less members of another species. So why, even though his entire body bid him to leave this village, did he continue to push his way further into the sweating mass of festival goers? It would have been much better to leave and head for the empty sky or the silence of the caves he now called home. 

So what was he looking for?

Finally it got too much for him and he fought his way out of the heavily populated town square. Making it into a quieter part of the village he felt the tension held in his muscles relax in relief. He breathed in the calm before taking a closer look at his surroundings, blinking in surprise as he suddenly realized why this section of town was so empty.

Every village had a place like this. Anywhere where large groups of people lived had to have a place to put those that died. 

There wasn't anything fancy about this graveyard, but it was well tended. The people here cared about those that had gone before them and kept these resting-places in good order. Stones and posts marked out where each person was buried and flowers adorned many of the sites.

The wanderer moved from stone to stone, reading of who was buried beneath. He suspected that it had been a very hard winter, as many of the graves were new. He gave each of them a silent hope for a better afterlife and was turning to leave when he saw a figure in white step into the moonlit graveyard. 

Whoever it was hadn't noticed him yet so he quietly moved backwards until he was hidden by the shade of a large tree that sat on the edge of the cemetery. The mourner headed to one of the newer stones and placed a small posy of flowers in front of it. Moonlight struck her face as she knelt at the grave and started to pray. 

The dragon had been planning to quietly withdraw until he saw the young woman's grieving face. She was beautiful. At the sight of her he froze, pinned to the earth by an emotion he didn't understand and would have fled from if he had. 

Her skin was so very pale in the moonlight and her blue eyes seemed to glow like two sapphires struck by the purest light. Her blue black hair hung down her back, unadorned yet stunning in its simplicity. The wanderer would have stayed and continued to stare at her but the intensity of her grief made him uncomfortable, as if he were looking into her very soul. With that thought he found the ability to move again and carefully stepped away from the small cemetery, using the shadows that had piled up around the trees as cover. Once free of the girl's presence his common sense told him to get as far away from this village as he could. 

************

The dragon smirked at that last thought as he shifted in his sandy bed. It wasn't the first time he had failed to listen to his common sense and it probably wouldn't be the last. Still, he could use a little of that now, as he really didn't know what to do with her. Since that first sighting he had returned to the village several times. He'd learned her name and watched as she cared for the house and garden that had been left to her by her father's death. He'd made sure that she never saw him and he'd hoped that his strange fascination with her would eventually have come to an end. 

Then to find her tied to a stake, set out for him to eat.

Anger blindsided him for a moment. Visions of the village reduced to rubble and charcoal enticed him with the promise of revenge and a release from the hate that burned through his mind. 

NO!

He shoved the vision and the anger into a ball and quickly thrust it behind a door in his mind. He locked it away as tightly as he could, his huge body shaking in horror at the thought of ever doing something like that again. 

He wouldn't do anything to hurt the villagers. His last run against them had been born of that anger and he had done a lot of damage. All he had meant to do was scare them so they would stop sending hunters after him. Instead he had gotten a little too enthusiastic with his fire and had fried much of the town's food source. 

They were scared now, so scared they were willing to sacrifice their own women to him. 

Which brought him back to Kaoru. She couldn't go back to the village, they would probably either kill her or put her back out to be eaten. But, could he keep her? 

Maybe if he did, just for a little while, he would lose the attraction he felt for her. She might only be interesting to him because she was something forbidden, something he could not have. If he spent time with her, learned everything he could about her, then perhaps this strange need would leave him. Afterwards he could find some nice town or city for her to live in and get back to his own life. 

Plans made he nestled a little further into the sand and drifted off to sleep. If he had been paying attention to what his common sense had to say about his latest brainstorm he would have still been awake. That part of him knew just how futile his attempt to be rid of his fascination with Kaoru would be.

It was the first time that that part of his brain was happy to be ignored.

End of Part 2


	3. Part Three

****

Warning: This is a fusion of Rurouni Kenshin, Vivian Vande Velde's Dragon's Bait and several other dragon and maiden books and movies. If you don't like, don't read.

Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin. I also do not own Vivian Vande Velde's Dragon's Bait, Patricia C Wrede's Dealing with Dragon's and it's many sequels, Dragonheart, Dragonslayer, any fairy tales that may pop up or the dragon and princess book that I read in grade four that I no longer remember the name of (Although it may or may not have been called 'The Dragon's Princess'). In other words if you recognize it (and possibly even if you don't) then I don't own it. So live with it, because I do. RK and the other stories are the property of their respective owners. I'm just writing this for fun (it's fanfiction, it's supposed to be fun) and will make no money from it. Please do not sue me. You really wouldn't get anything anyway.

Summary: Kaoru is the Maiden, guess who the Dragon is.

The Dragon and the Maiden

By Colleen

Part Three

****

The Maiden

Kaoru ate quickly and crawled into the futons. Exhausted from the events of the day she fell asleep so fast she didn't even have a chance to notice the musty nature of the bedding she lay upon.

Unfortunately sleep deserted her a few hours later when her abuse body decided to let her know just what it thought of being tied to a stake for most of a day. Her muscles were on fire, each of them feeling like separate threads pulled too tight on a loom. However this was nothing compared to the bands of pain that circled each of her wrists. The ropes she had been tied with and had struggled against had rubbed them raw and they now throbbed in time with her heartbeat. She'd cleaned the wounds in the waterfall last night but they really should have been treated and bandaged. 

She tried to ignore them but her few hours of sleep had taken the edge off of her fatigue. She tossed and turned and tried to tell herself that her wrists couldn't possibly be swelling up as much as she thought they were. Finally she gave into the pain and got up to see if there were any first aid supplies. 

Kaoru lit a candle from the embers of the fire that must have been used to cook the food she'd eaten and searched the small, off to the side area that was obviously used as a kitchen. There were a few pots and pans along with a barrel of rice and other supplies for cooking but nothing that she could use to clean and treat her wrists. They, she noticed when she studied them in the candle's light, looked even worse than they felt. She spread out to the rest of the living area searching everywhere. She even, after a few moments indecision, searched the chest that sat behind the dividing screen. It was the only place other than the kitchen that held any hope of having the items she needed.

She opened the trunk and pulled out what appeared to be two sections of folded cloth. She shook one of them out and then blushed when she realized she was holding the pair of hakama the dragon had been wearing earlier. The memory of him naked before her caused that blush to deepen and she diligently tried to stuff the thought away. Her mind however had other ideas. Instead reminding her of how afraid she'd been at that moment it instead centred on how beautiful he had appeared nude. She grit her teeth and locked the memory away, refusing to let her traitorous mind continue. She didn't want to remember how something in her had responded to his beauty and the heat of his body when he'd leaned over her. She quickly refolded the pants (not an easy thing to do) and placed them aside with what she now knew was his gi.

She looked into the bottom of the trunk and gasped. He'd left his sword. She lifted it out of the trunk and looked at it curiously. Why would a dragon use a sword? She put her hand on the hilt and considered drawing the blade, thoughts of taking the weapon and using it to defend herself as she escaped flashing through her mind. 

She snorted at the daydream and put the sword back where she'd found it. She would be lucky not to cut off her own foot with the thing much less use it to fight. She piled the clothing back on top and closed the lid.

Kaoru picked up one of the paper lanterns that lined the walls, placed her candle inside it and grabbed a short stick that was notched so that the light could hang on one end while she held onto the other. She left her quarters and started walking into the deeper caves, looking for where the dragon slept. He must, she gathered, keep the medicine box in his rooms. After all he had asked her earlier if she needed medicine so that should mean he had some. 

She knew he had told her to call if she needed anything but having him come all the way out here just to have to go back should he have the needed supplies seemed a waste of time. Besides, something in her rebelled at the thought of yelling for help. 

Thankfully it turned out that it wasn't very hard to follow him. Even by the feeble light of the paper lantern she carried she could make out footprints here and there where the dragon's human form had stepped into the drifts of dirt and dust that covered the cavern's floor. The ground also became progressively more sandy the further she went and the footprints became easier to see as there was no longer any rock that would hide their passage.

As she walked she slowly became aware of a sound that was growing in volume the further into the caves she went. She wondered if there was another exit at the back of the cavern, as she was sure it was the wind. It was blowing back and forward across some opening in the distance and it sounded as if a storm must have come up while she was sleeping. 

By the time she came upon his white yukata and obi crunched up into a ball on the sandy ground the sound was almost deafening. Frowning, she put down her lantern and picked up the robe and belt. 

She had shaken the sand out of them and folded them properly before the significance of them being there hit her. He was sleeping in the nude.

That thought almost convinced her to leave (otherwise know as bolt for safety). If her wrists hadn't been as bad as they were she would have. She was quite capable of ignoring the pain however the danger of infection if they were not soon treated was very real. So, still holding on the yukata with her left arm she picked up the lantern with her right and continued forward.

Three steps.

Here the footsteps she had been following changed. They went from a nicely formed human foot to something claw like that was almost as long as she was tall. Kaoru's mouth open in a small shocked 'o' at this discovery and she raised the lantern higher, towards the sound of the wind.

The light bounced off of scale, their colours shifting from green to purple as the dragon moved slightly with its' breathing. The red markings she had remembered from a distance were actually made up of a mane, which ran from the top of its' head and down its' back and a large scar on the left side of the dragon's 'face'. This no doubt translated to the red hair and cross-shaped scar he had in human form. 

She couldn't believe what an idiot she was, expecting him to sleep in the shape of a man. She had forgotten, in a way, that he wasn't human at all. He was instead a dragon who occasionally pretended to be one. At least now she understood two things he had said earlier that hadn't made much sense. If he always slept like this than only one futon would seem rather small to him. Heck two of the beds together wouldn't even hold a quarter of him. That and 'I do not have anything large enough to sleep in.' She looked down at the yukata, then back at the dragon and briefly tried to calculate the amount of cloth it would take to create a robe for him. The obi alone would take a staggering amount of material. 

It occurred to her then that she might be in shock. It was the only reason she could see for standing there mentally sewing clothing for the creature when she should be hightailing it back to the relative safety of the smaller caves.

Kaoru carefully backed away from the sleeping dragon. She stopped for a moment to set his yukata down where he had left it. Then, keeping her eyes firmly on the beast, she continued to move backwards. 

She should have watched her feet instead.

The sand under her left foot collapsed and with a small cry Kaoru found herself falling over for the third time that day. She dropped the lantern as she fell. The light didn't go out, instead the flame inside it caught at the paper causing it to burn in a shadow inducing frenzy. As soon as the fire finished eating the paper she would be in the dark. 

With a dragon she had just woken up.

Kaoru was suddenly reminded of the old saying that recommended letting sleeping dragons lie. It was good advice as dragons, like people, were prone to reacting with out thinking when woken to possible danger. For a creature that tended to be as hunted as he must be that meant attacking. 

The dragon let out a roar and swiped at her. Kaoru was frozen in fear until its' claws gouged out the ground in front of her, missing her by a hairs breath. Then she was up and running, fear and instinct guiding her through the dark caves now that she had no light to see by.

Behind her she heard the dragon roar again and start after her, its' footsteps sounding like cannon fire behind her. 

The terror and the adrenalin rush those footsteps induced let her forget her screaming muscles and for once this night her luck held to the good. She was able to stay at a dead run and not trip over or run into anything.

She really wasn't thinking, wasn't realizing that even if she got out of the caves she had nowhere to go, nowhere she could hide. All she could think about at that moment was that she had to get out. If she'd had farther to run then she might have let common sense catch up to her but she could see the opening to the cave just a little ways away. Sunrise, or at least the promise of it, must have lightened the sky and to her the patch of pale air meant freedom. 

She hadn't noticed that she could no longer hear the dragon coming after her.

A few steps away from the cave's exit arms grabbed her and threw her to the ground. The dragon, now once again human stood over her breathing hard, although not as hard as she was. Her panic-stricken mind noticed that his eyes were once again a glowing yellow and he was wearing the wrinkled yukata. 

She didn't think she could get much more afraid but she was wrong. His eyes were terrifying but somehow him being dressed and human was worse. He had actually gone back, changed, put on the robe and obi and still had time to catch her before she made it out of the caves. He hadn't even had to try very hard.

"What the hell do you think you were doing?" He asked her. Anger written on his face he reached down and grabbed her by her wrists to pull her to her feet.

She screamed. 

In her fright she had almost forgotten about her wrists. His tight grip on them was a brutal reminder. Her mind, overloaded on the sensation of pain and combined with her exhaustion and fear, shut down. She gratefully fell into a deeper darkness and passed out in his arms. 

****

The Dragon

When Kaoru ran from him the dragon roared out her name and gave chase, shifting to human as he moved. Pretty much without thinking he made a sudden u-turn and grabbed his yukata and obi and continued running after her while struggling into the robe and tying it shut. It seemed silly to go back for it but things seemed bad enough without adding the whole naked thing to it again. 

Why had she come into the deeper caves? He had told her to call for help if she needed it. Instead the stupid girl had come hunting him through the dark. She was lucky not to be dead. 

His anger built as he ran and the distance he had to chase her didn't help to cool it. He had expected the girl to trip or run into something and thereby end this race. Instead she defied the laws of probability and ran full out for the exit as if it were as bright as daylight in the caves instead of a darkness that must be impenetrable to her. 

If he'd had the time to think he would have realized that most of his anger was at how close he had come to hurting her. He had aimed to miss, he always did when woken that way, but given his half-awake state he had come closer to hitting her than he'd intended. Just a bit more off and Kaoru would have been little more than a bloody smear soaking into the sand.

When he finally caught up to her he threw her to the ground, not to hurt her, rather to stop her forward motion. His anger was riding him however and as he demanded to know what she thought she was doing he grabbed none to gently at her wrists and pulled her to her feet. 

And then his anger shattered and sliced into his soul at her scream. 

There was fear in the cry and he had expected that, what he hadn't expected was pain.

The girl went limp in his arms and he caught her up, carrying her at a near run into the living area. He laid her out on the futons and quickly lit a couple of the lanterns so he could see better.

Since the only thing he had been touching when she'd screamed had been her wrists he looked at them first. What he saw made him suck in his breath in shock. The ropes she had been tied with had striped most of the flesh from them and the area was now red and swollen. He felt her face and hissed a little at how warm she was. True she had just been running but it was fairly obvious that she also had a fever.

What should he do?

Even though he had asked her if she needed medicine he didn't actually have any. If she'd said yes earlier he would have gotten her some but he'd expected her to know what she would need. If he couldn't ask her he would have to ask someone else and the only person he knew to ask or even to get the stuff from was his godfather. 

Should he take her with him? Gently, he touched her face again. The fever wasn't too bad and her heartbeat and breathing were steady but that could easily change. The trip there wouldn't be long but he would have to fly higher into the mountains and the cold air and the change in altitude wouldn't help her any. Best to leave her here then and be quick enough to get back before she woke. 

He left her covered up on the futons with a cup of water beside her and a cold cloth on her forehead. Then he ran to the chest and grabbed his clothing and sword, tying them into a bundle that he could carry while flying. He took one more look at the girl then moved out of the caves and shifted form before taking to the sky.

As the dragon flies his destination was close. Actually he had been visiting his godfather shortly before the first time he had seen Kaoru, otherwise he would never have been anywhere near a village. The wizard lived at the peak of the tallest mountain in the area but it still only took him about twenty minutes to get there. 

The man's home consisted of a centre building, which is where the he lived, and a series of wings that branched out from the main structure. The dragon himself hadn't been out of the main house and he knew that his godfather never entered any of the other sections without a great deal of preparation. When he did go in he would be gone for days and often came out looking worn and tattered. 

He'd decided long ago that he really didn't want to know what was in those other rooms. 

He just prayed that the wizard wasn't in one of them now. He didn't have time to wait for him to come out. 

The dragon landed at the front of the house and shifted form once again. He ran into the house, carrying his bundle of clothing. His godfather, thank the gods, was sitting at his desk going over some papers.

"I need medicine," was the first thing out of the redheads mouth.

"And good morning to you too baka deshi." 

End of Part Three

Note: Well I doubt that was a surprise to anyone.

Authors note: I had already written (but not posted) the maiden section of this chapter before the second chapter of Linay's 'Broken Pieces' came out. Because they are both chase scenes it reminded me of what I had already written, so I just wanted to say that if anyone else feels the same that it is a complete coincidence. Also Linay's Kaoru kicks butt so if you haven't read her story yet you should.


	4. Part Four

****

Warning: This is a fusion of Rurouni Kenshin, Vivian Vande Velde's Dragon's Bait and several other dragon and maiden books and movies. If you don't like, don't read.

Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin. I also do not own Vivian Vande Velde's Dragon's Bait, Patricia C Wrede's Dealing with Dragon's and it's many sequels, Dragonheart, Dragonslayer, any fairy tales that may pop up or the dragon and princess book that I read in grade four that I no longer remember the name of (Although it may or may not have been called 'The Dragon's Princess'). In other words if you recognize it (and possibly even if you don't) then I don't own it. So live with it, because I do. RK and the other stories are the property of their respective owners. I'm just writing this for fun (it's fanfiction, it's supposed to be fun) and will make no money from it. Please do not sue me. You really wouldn't get anything anyway.

Summery: Kaoru's the Maiden, guess who the Dragon is.

Rating: PG-13

****

Original Post notes.

Author's note: I really wanted to write more than this before I put it out because nothing seems to be happening yet. I'm sure my notes for this story had a plot in it somewhere. I've decided to post this part anyway, as some of the reviewers appear ready to hunt me down and hurt me if I don't get something out. 

Author's whining: I've never written Hiko before so I don't know if I did very well.

Author covering her butt as usual: You may notice that the dragon (Kenshin) is more rurouni like in this chapter. I think Hiko just does that to him.

Thanks: Thanks again for all the reviews, I'm sorry that chapter updates will be so slow but I am slow and stupid enough to be writing three stories at the same time. Don't worry though, I have every intention of continuing these until they are done. 

For Rei-chan: Baka deshi means stupid student and is the name that Kenshin's teacher always calls him. As an aside shishou, which is Kenshin's name for Hiko, means master or teacher, usually in a martial arts context.

For Chibi-angel: No, Hiko won't be a dragon as well, but hopefully he will get to flex his wizardly powers at some point (I hope).

For Anna-neko: I would write longer chapters if it didn't take me so long to do it (I'm very slow). Thank you for the reviews and may I say that I love your stuff, it's wonderful and funny and sexy... and I could go on for far, far too long.

More thanks: Thanks to Sage, Emiri-chan, Lady Inu Yasha, Hatokirei, Jason M. Lee, Koneko-dono, Firefury, Macy, Gypsy-chan, Kori Suketchi, Dragonfire Gal, Chibi Angel, Anna-neko, Gypsy-chan and Battousai Angel for being such faithful, funny, and helpful reviewers. Also thanks again to everyone else who reviews. I am very happy that you like this story and I hope it continues to be of interest. 

The Dragon and the Maiden

By Colleen

Part Four

****

The Dragon and the Wizard

"Good morning shishou. I need medicine," the redhead said again quickly as he untied the bundle he had brought with him.

His godfather, Hiko the great, wizard extraordinaire and thirteenth master of Hiten Mitsurugi ryu gave him an amused look and asked him, "and what would YOU need medicine for?"

His baka deshi spoke while struggling into his clothing. "It is for Kaoru, she's sick. She said she wasn't but now she is and," he looked down as he worked to loop the hakama's ties around his waist, "this time it isn't because I was naked.

THUD!

The dragon looked up to find his teacher and godfather lying on the floor flat on his back chair and all. "Baka deshi could you start that from the beginning and this time make sense?"

So while Hiko righted himself he told the wizard how he had found a girl named Kaoru tied to a stake, had taken her home, had scared her by coming up behind her naked and why he had thought she was sick the first time. 

Then he had to wait for Hiko to stop laughing.

"Shishou," he said, half-reproachful, half-embarrassed. The wizard was always capable of making him feel like a hatchling and having to admit to the misunderstanding with the clothing just made it worse. 

Hiko wiped the tears out of his eyes and told him to continue.

He finished off the story with the chase in the caves, her passing out when he grabbed her wrists and how bad her injuries were. 

"So what are you planning on doing with her?" His godfather asked him once the tale was done.

"Get her some medicine so she can get better," was the answer.

Hiko sighed and rubbed his forehead as if in pain. "I meant after she was better, baka."

"Oh."

A moment in time passed.

"Well?!!!"

The redhead gave a guilty start. "I thought I would keep her for awhile," was the quiet answer. His shishou's expression, one of amazement and a little anger lead him to continue quickly. "Just until she's better and I find a new place for her to live. She can't go back to her village.

"No she can't go back and I suspect that that is entirely your fault." 

The dragon hung his head at his teacher's pronouncement. What could he say? As annoying as it was to admit the man was right. If he hadn't stayed in the area, if he hadn't gone and taken his anger with the last two hunters that had tracked him down out on the village then they would never have been so desperate as to have done something like that to Kaoru. 

Hiko shook his head over the sad state of affairs that his student had gotten himself into. "Come on," he said as he stood up. "Let's go to my workroom and I'll get you the supplies you need. 

His godson looked up at him with such thanks in his eyes that the wizard began to wonder about the girl he was looking after. It was obvious that his idiot pupil cared a great deal about her, more so than he should have if the girl was a stranger to him. 

Ah well, he'd pursue that thought in a few days if the girl was still with him. Right now he'd help his baka deshi to look after her. 

Hiko opened the door to his workroom and stepped into a textbook description of a wizard's laboratory. Shelves of books and herbs lined the walls. The ancient tomes therein seemed to lean out over the room to watch as Hiko headed to the worktable that sat in the middle of the room. It was also covered in books and bottles and other things best not mentioned.

"Are the wounds just on her wrists or is she injured in other places as well?" The wizard asked the dragon.

"I am not sure." The redhead cast his mind back to the image of Kaoru standing by the waterfall with her kimono pulled down so she could wash. He didn't remember any other cuts or bruises but he hadn't really gotten to see very much of her. 

"Well," the wizard said as he moved over to one of the bookcases and started to rummage around in the bottles of herbs there, "if she doesn't wake up soon you might have to strip her down and check. It wouldn't do to fix her wrists only to miss something worse hiding under her clothing." 

The dragon swallowed hard. While the idea of walking around naked didn't faze him the though of Kaoru nude made his head spin. "Oro, she'll kill me."

Hiko gave him a snort laugh as he brought several bottles back to the table and started to grind and mix their contents. "I see you're learning fast for a change baka deshi," he said, before pondering the situation for a moment. " It would be better if you woke her so she can check for herself," he turned to look at his student, "but don't leave it too long."

The dragon nodded and hovered over the wizard as he continued to mix the herbs. Becoming annoyed with him Hiko sent him off to the supply room to get some bandages while he finished with the preparations. 

His student came back overloaded with the rolls of white cloth just in time to see Hiko filling three very different containers. 

"Put those down before you drop them." The younger man nodded and dumped them onto the table. Hiko opened one of the drawers that ran under the worktables counter and pulled out a canvas bag that would be large enough for the bandages and medicine. He threw it to his godson and leaving him to fill the bag with the rolls he picked up the three containers and left the room. 

The redhead filled the bag quickly and holding on to it followed his godfather out of the room. He found the wizard at his desk, writing. 

"I'm writing out the instructions for these," Hiko said, pointing at the containers with his chin. "I'll explain them to you now but I don't want you to forget between here and there and poison the poor girl." 

The dragon opened his mouth to protest then closed it without saying anything. While he was perfectly capable of remembering the instructions it was unlikely that he would win any argument about it. Instead he just nodded and waited for his teacher to tell him what to do.

The wizard finished writing and handed the paper over to his godson. Then he pulled a length of string and a small scoop out of one of the many cubby-holes in his desk and started to tie up the container that looked like a large bento box. He crisscrossed the box as if it was a parcel and tied the scoop to it before he finished the whole thing off with a nice bow and handed it to the dragon. 

"I want you to take two scoops of this and pour four cups of boiling water over it. Once it has cooled a little you should soak her wrists in it for fifteen minutes. If there are any other wounds you should make some more and clean them with the solution. After that you will have to clean her wrists and other wounds with it twice a day but you shouldn't need to do the soaking again." 

His student nodded. 

Hiko opened one of the lower desk drawers and pulled out a second smaller scoop and took the top off of the next container, which was a tall clay pot. He stuck the scoop into its contents and closed the lid before finding some more string and tying it closed as well.

"I want you to take one scoop of this and prepare it as a tea with two cups of water. Make her drink all of it and after that she should take one cup of it twice a day for at least the next three days. If the fever continues longer than that then you should either bring her here or get her a doctor." Hiko told him, handing him the pot.

His student gave him another, somewhat worried nod.

The third container was a flat round metal jar about the size of Hiko's palm. He picked it up and opened it by unscrewing the lid, tilting it so the other could see that it was some kind of salve. "I want you to put this on all her wounds before you bandage them. You will have to do this twice a day for at least the next five days and replace the bandages each time." He closed the lid and gave the dragon this last container. 

The redhead put the concoctions into the bag with the bandages and then thanked the wizard for his help. Hiko gave another little snort laugh and said, "you're welcome, now get going. She shouldn't be left alone much longer." The dragon bowed to him and turned to go when his teacher stopped him with some parting advice. "Don't forget baka deshi she isn't a toy."

"Shishou?"

"This girl you're looking after. She isn't some toy for you to play with." The wizard held up his hands to ward off the indignant reply that the younger man was about to grace him with. "What I mean is treat her with respect and let her know that you will help her get settled into a new life. Knowing you I suspect that you've neglected to tell her that."

The wizard could tell he had hit the mark by the way his late friend's son refused to meet his eyes. With another snort he sent the young dragon on his way, certain (as always) that he had gotten through to the boy. 

************ 

After striping down, changing, flying back to his caves, and changing form again the dragon slipped into his yukata and tied it shut before dumping the rest of his clothing and sword in a heap at the mouth of the cave. He dragged the first aid supplies into the living area and went to check on Kaoru. She was still asleep. A touch to her face told him that her fever had gotten slightly worse during the hour or so he had been gone and she whimpered at the feel of his skin against hers.

The noise she made startled him and he quickly removed his hand from her face. Looking down at her his godfather's words came back to haunt him. She was a living, breathing, hurting being and not a thing to be kept until he was tired of her. He would not forget that again and he would treat this woman with the utmost respect and courtesy. After she was better he would find her a new life as far away from him as he possibly could. He had already destroyed her old life just by being here; the least he could do was make sure that it never happened again. 

****

The Maiden

"Kaoru... dono, Kaoru dono please wake up."

Kaoru ignored the voice that called her name. However the more desperate that voice became the more difficult it was to disregard it and stay safely asleep. So she felt relieved when the voice gave up only to be concerned again when she felt herself being moved. A sudden warmth at her back, as if someone was holding her gently from behind reassured and comforted her enough though that she slid back into the deeper darkness.

Missing the fact that her hands and wrists had just been immersed in a pot of warm water.

****

The Dragon

Kami, the dragon thought, I know I wanted her to wake up but if you could make sure she stays asleep for the next fifteen minutes I would be ever so grateful. 

It was almost as if fate were mocking his earlier vow. His and Kaoru's current positions had to be the most disrespectful looking thing he had ever come up with. After preparing the medicine the only way he could think to get her wrists properly into the pot was for her to sit up. Since she wouldn't wake up he was now holding her from behind, his arms wrapped around her waist, while her hands soaked in the pot that he had set between her legs. 

For the first five minutes he sat behind her tense and uneasy. Unconsciously, however, his body started to relax against hers. His mind may have decided that he would treat Kaoru as if she would break but his body had other ideas. Lulled by the heat and weight of her against him he tightened his hold and buried his nose in her hair. He breathed in her scent, memorizing and saving it to remember for later, for when he would be alone once again. 

****

The Maiden

Kaoru dreamed. She was warm, warm and safe and held in loving arms. And she would have been ever so happy to stay there if it hadn't been for the dragon at her feet who kept licking her hands with a warm wet tongue. Combined with this annoyance was an added problem. She had to go to the bathroom, now. She turned to look behind her for help but she couldn't see who was holding her as that person was hiding in her hair. She looked back at the dragon who took that moment to stop licking and attempted to swallow her hands instead. She screamed as its teeth bit through her wrists and she woke suddenly to find herself in an odd if somewhat similar situation to that of her dream. 

Fully awake the pain in her wrists flared back to life helped no doubt by the astringent quality of the solution she was soaking in. She attempted to wrench away from the water but was thwarted when a pair of hands grabbed her carefully, well above her injured wrists, and held her arms in place so she could not get them out of the pot. She looked behind her to see the young dragon holding her and she bit down on the whimper of fear that threatened to escape from her throat. 

"Let me go."

The fingers wrapped around her arms tightened for a moment, "please do not remove them from the water, they still have to soak a few minutes longer for the medicine to work right."

Then she was free. 

She grit her teeth and kept her hands in the solution. The dragon moved away from her, causing her to shiver at the sudden loss of his body heat at her back. He stood and went into the kitchen area without even looking at her. 

She sat there for a few minutes, staring bleakly into the pot as if she might scrye her future in the herb specked water within. Her body started slightly to find the dragon standing beside her again. He silently held out a towel to her and she removed her water-pruned fingers from the potion and took it from him. She dried her hands and was gingerly dabbing at her wrists when a large cup appeared in front of her face along with the instructions, "drink this."

She took the cup and drank the contents, grimacing slightly at the bitter strong taste of it. She finished it quickly and was startled once again when he took the cup out of her hands and replaced it with another. She took a sip then, moving the pot and gathering her feet under her, she stood, weaving slightly once she was fully upright. 

"You should not get up yet, you need more rest."

Kaoru almost felt like hissing at him. Anger broadsided her, anger that was mostly aimed at herself for blindly doing what he told her to do. She handed him back the cup; she was not going to let him treat her like a sick child that couldn't look after herself. 

"I'm fine," she told him. "I just need to..." Damn she didn't want to have to tell him that. 

"You need to what?"

"I need to go to the bathroom, ok?"

"Oh," he said, before picking up and handing her one of the paper lanterns. She looked at it confused.

"Just head down there," he said, pointing off into the smaller caves past the lacquered screen. "You'll know the place when you see it."

Carefully she took the lantern from him and holding the stick with two hands she turned towards the darkness. 

"Oh, and Kaoru dono, please check yourself for further injuries. If there are any they will need to be cleaned and treated as well." 

"She grunted in agreement, not bother to look back at him. She moved away from him as quickly as possible. Not so much to get away from him but because her whole body wanted to rebel. Walking into these caves was far too reminiscent of what had happened just a few hours ago. She forced herself to move swiftly though, not wanting to show any further weakness to the dragon.

About twenty-five paces in and a turn in the tunnel like cave the air became noticeably warmer and damper. Another fifty paces and one more turn and the passageway opened out into a cave somewhat larger than the living area she had just left. 

Kaoru gasped, surprised to find that it was a grotto with a natural hot spring. 

Sunlight illuminated the room, the light streaming in through a number of holes in the walls and ceilings of the cave. The sun sparkled off of some metal that was specked through the rock, the effect turning the hot spring from something useful into something enchanting.

The place was also well set up with buckets, soap and a pile of towels, which Kaoru realized was where the dragon must have gotten the one he gave her earlier. He had also, as promised, set up a lavatory area and she rushed over to make use of it.

Relief gained she started to check her body over from top to bottom. It was still stiff and sore but except for a few bruises and her wrists she didn't seem to have taken anymore damage. A brief wave of dizziness swept over her when she straightened up and she felt at her face noticing how hot she was. She sighed. It looked like the dragon was right, she would have to rest. 

She reluctantly picked up the lantern from where she had set it down in her rush to use the bathroom. She really didn't want to go back. The dragon was acting stranger than usual. Somehow he was even colder and scarier than he had been before and he was making it even weirder by being extra polite when he used her name. 

That thought froze her in place. Her body started to shake even worse than when she had seen the dragon naked. Only this time the emotion was anger instead of fear. 

How the hell had he known her name?

End of Part Four


	5. Part Five

****

Warning: This is a fusion of Rurouni Kenshin, Vivian Vande Velde's Dragon's Bait and several other dragon and maiden books and movies. If you don't like, don't read.

Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin. I also do not own Vivian Vande Velde's Dragon's Bait, Patricia C Wrede's Dealing with Dragon's and it's many sequels, Dragonheart, Dragonslayer, any fairy tales that may pop up or the dragon and princess book that I read in grade four that I no longer remember the name of (Although it may or may not have been called 'The Dragon's Princess'). In other words if you recognize it (and possibly even if you don't) then I don't own it. So live with it, because I do. RK and the other stories are the property of their respective owners. I'm just writing this for fun (it's fanfiction, it's supposed to be fun) and will make no money from it. Please do not sue me. You really wouldn't get anything anyway.

Summery: Kaoru's the Maiden, guess who the Dragon is.

Rating: PG-13

****

Original Post's Author's notes

Author's note: Hi. I'm alive (amazing isn't it?) and I'm still writing. Although I'll admit that a snail could probably write faster than I am at the moment. Anyway I finally finished at least one chapter in one of my stories. I hope it is still running all right as it has been written over a very long period of time. Give it a read and tell me what you think, even about grammar and spelling. I have edited it a few times but it may need more, I just don't want to read it over again (and again and again and again), at least not right now (my brain has had enough). 

Another note: The confrontation between dragon and maiden may not go the way you thought it would, heck, it didn't even go the way I thought it would. Still, I hope it works. 

Thank you: Thank you to everyone who has reviewed over that last few months (yes it's been that long). I don't know when the next chapter will be out but I will keep working on it. 

The Dragon and the Maiden

By Colleen

Part Five

****

The Dragon 

The dragon watched as Kaoru headed off into the caves. When it appeared she would be all right by herself he took her unfinished cup of tea into the kitchen area and set it down beside the small fire there to keep it warm. Then, since she was up, he grabbed one of the futons and blankets and dragged them outside, hanging them up on the clothing poles so they could air out. This way he could switch the bedding later and she wouldn't have to keep sleeping on the musty and no doubt damp quilts. 

On his way out he practically tripped over the forgotten bundle of his sword and clothing. He picked them up on his way back, shaking his head over the badly creased and now dirty gi and hakama. 

He pulled the sword out of the pile and set it on the table before once again dropping the rest on the ground. After he had Kaoru patched up and back in bed he would do the laundry. At that thought he frowned and looked off into the caves. She had been gone a fairly long time, surely it couldn't take her that long to go to the bathroom. 

Worry gripped at him. Anything could have happened to her, well okay not anything but she could have fallen, or become too weak to make it back, or she might just have passed out again. The possibilities were endless and as the anxiety built in his mind his body grabbed one of the lanterns and headed off after her long before his brain even thought to suggest doing the same.

****

The Maiden

Kaoru planned her attack well. First she would have to keep him in the living area, the tunnels or the grotto. Having seen his true size twice now she knew that he wouldn't be able to fit into any of these spaces if he were to shape shift. Second, she would have to keep him off balance and attacking with a barrage of items seemed the best way to do that. Third, she would have to get to the sword, which was hopefully still in the trunk. 

Other than the few knives in the kitchen the sword was the only tangible weapon in the place. While it was true that she didn't have any experience with a blade it was better than nothing and if she had it then at least he wouldn't be able to use it. 

She took a deep breath and reassured herself that it could work. The dragon's advantage was his true form. If you took that away you were left with a man not that much taller or heavier than she was. It was also unlikely that he had any real fighting skill despite the sword. Why bother when you could normally crush anything with little to no effort. 

Plans in place the horrible thoughts that had prompted them in the first place settled back around her like a heavy shroud. 

He knew her name. 

Had he, as a dragon, promised to spare the village for the price of a maiden? Had they agreed, telling him her name in passing, or had he ask for her specifically? For months now she'd had an off and on again feeling of someone watching her. At the time she had dismissed it as her imagination but now she wasn't so sure. What if he had been watching her? What if he had picked her out long ago? 

And what would he do to her if she stayed much longer? 

She had no intention of finding out.

****

The Dragon

The dragon quickly walked the path to the bath area with a growing sense of unease. The apprehension shouldn't have been surprising since he was worried about Kaoru but that wasn't quite what his senses were trying to warn him about. If he didn't know better he would have thought that they were trying to tell him he was in danger. But that didn't make any sense.

Neither did what happened next. 

His foot skidded on ground made slippery by soapy water and a soft piece of cloth flew out of the darkness and landed on his face. He had a moment to recognize it as one of the towels he kept in the grotto before the rest of his soap supply followed. 

All ten bars of it.

After the first four or five of them he wondered what had possessed him to store so many of them in easy reach. Kaoru had a strong arm and all of the bars hit their mark. Most of them were aimed at his head but a few took him in the stomach for good measure. Each hit was accompanied with a tiny oro or grunt of pain, depending on where he got it. True, he could have easily dodged them but instead he took the hits, thinking that she would become even more frightened or angry it she believed that she had no ability to fight against him. However when the first of the wash buckets glanced off the side of his head he really wished he'd thought to duck, just a little. Surely he could make it look like a lucky fluke? 

With that thought in mind he leaned back as if he were once again losing his balance and narrowly avoided the second tub. He pin wheeled his arms comically in what appeared to be a futile attempt to regain his stability then seemed to lose to gravity, dropping to the ground in a heap just as the last bucket whizzed over his head. Eyes and head spiralling in a disconcerting manner he stayed down as Kaoru ran by. She gave him a whack with the water ladle for good measure then buried him under the rest of the towels before moving down the passage.

****

The Maiden

As Kaoru dashed down the tunnel she congratulated herself on the ambush. As expected, when confronted with physical resistance while he was human it was possible to get the better of the dragon. Still that didn't mean she could let up just yet. She hit the living area of the caves at a dead run and practically ripped open the lid of the trunk where she had last seen the sword. 

It was empty.

The world greyed out around her for a moment as panic and illness fought to drop her where she stood. She concentrated on her breathing, letting some of her fear go before she found herself passed out in a heap similar to the one she had left the dragon in. 

Right now, she reminded herself, the dragon is unconscious and the sword doesn't matter. Even if she had found it she really didn't know how to use it. Desperately trying to convince herself of that she walked around the folding screen to grab the table she had eaten dinner on, intending to use it and the screen to block the tunnel before she left. She gasped and felt faint again, this time with relief as she spotted the sheathed blade sitting on the wood surface, waiting for her.

She picked it up, surprised by its weight, and laid it on the ground before dragging the table around the screen and tipping it on its side so that it covered part of the passageways opening. She then closed the screen and manhandled it into position across the rest of the space and lastly she shoved the trunk up behind them to make sure they would stay where she had put them. 

Sweating heavily and slightly dizzy she returned to the sword and claiming it once again turned to head out of the caves and down the mountain. 

Which probably would have been easier if the dragon wasn't already standing, arms crossed in front of him, in the entrance to the living area.

****

The Dragon

He was trying so very hard not to be angry. 

It wasn't working. 

He wanted to be amused at the idea that she thought a table and screen would have kept him out even if he would have had to take that tunnel back to the living area. He wanted to smile at thought of her using his sword. She looked good holding one but it was obvious she had no training. Even sheathed she held the thing like it would cut her. 

Truly he did want to be charmed by it all. 

If the situation had been different he would have been. If she wasn't sick and in danger of being hurt or killed by the people of her village he would have let her go. He could have stayed hidden and watched from a distance as he made sure she returned to her home safely. Once she was gone he would have simply packed up and left. These caves were very nice but he could find others that were further away from people, towns, villages... and her. 

But she had no place to go; no place she could reach that would be safe even supposing she could have made it down the mountain without passing out. Escaping him would just get her killed.

So even though he didn't really want to be angry with her he felt an overpowering need to shake her until she saw some sense. And because he would end up hurting her or worse if he gave into that need he stayed where he was. He crossed his arms, attempting a relaxed pose; unaware that it made him look more intimidating than he would have wanted. His eyes also kept flashing yellow with the ebb and flow of his anger and worry. Every line of his body was tensed against physical action as he waited for her to turn and notice him, to realize that she couldn't escape him. 

He was angry enough that her fear of him when she turned to see him wouldn't have affected him if it hadn't been for her sudden loss of colour. He'd thought she had been pale before but the sight of him sent her skin searching for a new shade of white, one that made her look rather like a porcelain doll brought to unsteady life.

The part of him that wanted to throttle her for the stunt she had just pulled quickly lost out to the rest of him. One look at her and he knew he would always seek to protect her, even if it meant she hated and feared him forever. 

"What the hell did you think you were doing?" He growled out at her. 

It was amazing how fast her face went from that dead shade of pale to an angry tint of red that even he couldn't confuse with a fever. 

"I am leaving." She said, spacing the words out for emphasis.

"No, you are not." He said in an equal manner as he moved towards her. 

She backed away one step then steeled herself and drew the sword. 

A katana is a rather long weapon and not the easiest thing to draw if you've never done it before. Her angle was bad and the tip caught for a moment, giving the human dragon more than enough time to reach out and grab the sword's sheath. She quickly moved back one more step, pulling the sword free as she did, relinquishing the sheath to him as she moved away.

She levelled the blade at him and he had to smile again. She looked even better holding an unsheathed blade, and although her grip was incorrect there was something about the way she held herself that said she was meant to hold such a weapon. The dragon stepped into position across from her and holding the sheath like a sword positioned it so that it was tip to tip dead even from its partner.

****

The Maiden

Kaoru yelled incoherently and with a complete loss of common sense struck out at the obstacle to her freedom. The dragon casually blocked the blow one handed with the sheath, making the move look almost like an afterthought. One part of her mind registered the fact that even though she had just put all of her strength into that strike the dragon hadn't been budged an inch. The rest of her mind was caught at the point where the blade and the sheath had met. 

The sheath was iron, which rather explained why the sword had seemed so heavy to her and while something odd about that whispered in her mind it wasn't that that had caught her attention. The blade that she had used had hit with a solid 'clang', the noise different enough from what she had expected to make her take a closer look at her weapon of choice.

It didn't have a sharp edge.

No, she noticed, that wasn't actually true. Assuming she hadn't drawn the thing upside down (and she didn't think she had) the cutting edge actually ran along the back of the sword.

That didn't make any sense. Why would someone even consider using a sword like this? It would be very difficult to kill someone with it, not impossible of course because the thing was heavy and the blade could be turned but still, it normally wouldn't be much worse than carrying a wooden sword.

Could he actually not want to kill? And if that was true did that carry over into not wanting to hurt her? 

"Kaoru dono."

"Don't call me that." Kaoru startled out of her thoughts, shouted at him as she backed away. The dragon looked at her oddly for a moment before continuing.

"If you leave here where will you go? Where can you go?" 

The girl just shook her head and continued to back up.

"You can not go back to your village and even if you could you are too injured to make it safely down the mountain," he said, following after her.

It wasn't until her back met the table blocking the tunnel that she remembered to raise the sword again. Although she wasn't sure how much good the reversed blade would be against the redhead as she realized with a start that she couldn't bring herself to actually turn the weapon and use the live edge against him.

Why couldn't she use the sharp side? He had brought her here against her will. Ok, he had rescued her before bringing her here but she wasn't sure that that hadn't been part of the plan. And he had gotten naked in front of her. Ok so he hadn't done anything, in fact he hadn't even seemed to realize that it was, well, inappropriate. And he had feed her and looked after her wounds and was obviously trying to be polite.

But he knew her name. And he shouldn't.

"Kaoru dono..." 

"Arrrgggg." The use of her name along with the extra polite honorific sent her off again and she lunged forward, heaving the sword in front of her. The dragon just stepped aside, lightly batting the arc of steel out of the way as he moved. Off balance Kaoru's strike continued sideways until it struck the floor of the cave setting off a vibration in the blade that almost made her drop the weapon.

She was beginning to realize that her hope of his being an inferior swordsman had pretty much been shattered, swept up and deposited in the waste pile.

****

The Dragon

Things were getting seriously out of control and if he didn't do something soon someone, probably Kaoru, was going to get hurt. She was running on adrenaline and fear but it couldn't last forever and eventually exhaustion and her wounds would catch up with her and cut her feet out from under her. If he could just talk to her for a moment without her getting so angry and afraid then he could reassure her. He could let her know that he would find her a new and safe place for her to live. But instead she seemed intent on doing him grievous harm, and it got worse every time he said her name.

.....................Oh.

"Kaoru dono?"

"Stop saying that," the girl said in a voice that no doubt would have been an aggravated snarl if she weren't tiring so quickly. She did manage to raise the sword again but the tip never made it above her waist and it had a tendency to weave back and forward in an unintentional figure eight pattern. 

Understanding finally having dawned the dragon frantically thought to explain how he knew her name when he shouldn't have. The answer came when he thought back to the first time that he had heard it spoken aloud. It had been such a simple moment that he decided to just tell the truth, or at least some of it.

"Did I get your name wrong?" 

The girl blinked at him and stared, looking as if he had just turned into something even more unusual than a dragon, like a pink rabbit perhaps. "What?" 

"Your name. The first time I was in your village, to buy a bale of rice, I saw you shopping at the stall next to me. I was certain that the seller called you Kaoru, but I could be mistaken, it was quite a while ago." Of course he wouldn't mention the fact that, while he had gone to buy rice, he had also wandered aimlessly around the village for a couple of hours before doing so, waiting so he could catch a glimpse of her again.

The tip of the sword dipped further towards the ground. "Rice?" She asked, her voice stunned. "You were buying rice?"

"Well... yes. In fact you ate some if it last night." 

"Rice." The tip of the sword met the ground, followed by the hilt, which would have been followed by Kaoru if the dragon hadn't made it to her side in time to catch her. He quickly carried her back to her bed and laid her down. "You heard my name when you were buying rice," she mumbled as he tucked the top quilt around her. 

The dragon retrieved the half-drunk cup of medicinal tea and brought it back to her. He eased her up into a partial sitting position just long enough for her to drink the brew then laid her back down and fussed with the blankets once more. 

"So, you know my name, because of rice."

"Yes Kaoru dono, I know your name because of rice." The dragon was becoming a little worried, as the girl's mind seemed to be fixated on the name subject. "You should get some sleep now."

"I don't know yours," she said a little sadly.

The dragon looked startled for a moment and then nodded his understanding. "My human name is Kenshin."

"Kenshin," she said softly as she drifted off to sleep. "That's nice."

****

The Maiden

Kaoru slept the sleep of the completely exhausted, so tired that her wrists being salved and bandaged failed to wake her up. Her dreams were fragmentary but in all of them she kept happily rearranging Kanji written on pieces of rice. She spelled out her name, she spelled out Kenshin's name, and in a few, by mixing the letters up, she even managed to discover the name the swordsman had when he was a dragon.

Of course she would be very annoyed when she awoke to find that such information was unable to make the journey from the land of sleep to the waking world.

But that would be later. 

End of Part Five


	6. Part Six

****

Warning: This is a fusion of Rurouni Kenshin, Vivian Vande Velde's Dragon's Bait and several other dragon and maiden books and movies. If you don't like, don't read.

Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin. I also do not own Vivian Vande Velde's Dragon's Bait, Patricia C Wrede's Dealing with Dragon's and it's many sequels, Dragonheart, Dragonslayer, any fairy tales that may pop up or the dragon and princess book that I read in grade four that I no longer remember the name of (Although it may or may not have been called 'The Dragon's Princess'). In other words if you recognize it (and possibly even if you don't) then I don't own it. So live with it, because I do. RK and the other stories are the property of their respective owners. I'm just writing this for fun (it's fanfiction, it's supposed to be fun) and will make no money from it. Please do not sue me. You really wouldn't get anything anyway.

Summery: Kaoru's the Maiden, guess who the Dragon is.

Rating: PG-13

****

Original Post's Author's Notes.

Author's note: I'm so sorry for the delay, I can only plead laziness, writers block, a strike, Christmas and winter, finishing chapters in two other stories and then a new story idea that wouldn't let me go for about ten pages (of course now that one is stuck and un posted) and the rewrite from hell (I've never had so much problem editing a chapter before).

Thank you: Thank you for your reviews and suggestions and demands that I get the next chapter out, they were extremely helpful.

Please excuse any errors I may have made concerning things, especially miso soup.

I really hope it's all right, especially as the finished product doesn't look much like the first draft at all and I probably should have let it go several weeks ago. 

The Dragon and the Maiden

By Colleen

Part Six

****

A Knight?

Sano had to admit that he'd met a lot of interesting and kind people during his travels. There were people who had given him jobs, people who had taken him in without question, people who had taught him new skills and people who had become good and true friends.

Unfortunately the two assholes with him were none of the above.

Dragon hunters had to be the biggest pains in the butt if Kanbe and Tokuma were anything to go by. The entire trip all they'd done was moan and bitch about the giant lizard that had dropped them in a lake a few days back. Sano wished that they would just stuff the complaining someplace small and dark and instead be grateful to be alive. He'd certainly choose a swim and walk over being roasted and served for dinner any day.

Sanosuke would have broken away from the two whiners long ago if they hadn't been going were he needed to get. Unfortunately he did need them because, even though he would never admit it to anyone, his sense of direction was not always the best. And while that hadn't really mattered when he was wandering with no set destination in mind trying for a specific location, even when that place was his childhood home, was a little different. So if having to listen to these two was the price of not getting lost then he would just have to put up with them.

Maybe he could hurt them a little after they got there?

He mulled the thought over for a few happy moments before dismissing it. He'd soon be rid of them and besides he had better things to do. Returning home and being with the two remaining members of his family was far more important than a little gratuitous violence. Especially since he had already been gone for about four years, which was two more than he had planned on. Having been gone so long he didn't want to waste even the few seconds that it would take to flatten the two complainers. 

He smiled at the thought of his family and hoped they'd be as happy to see him as he knew he'd be to see them. At the very least he figured he'd be able to keep them entertained as he had plenty of stories to tell. A lot could happen when you set out to see the world and actually did, even if you did spend weeks at a time getting lost in mainland China and the further reaches of Outer Mongolia. 

Of course getting lost and loving every minute of it was pretty much the theme for the entire time he'd been away. 

If fact he'd loved it so much that he hadn't really planned on coming back. However, home had been calling to him for some time, in fact it'd been just about screaming at him. A couple of months ago he'd finally gave in and packed up the few things he owned before starting the long trip back to Japan. 

Sano's stomach gurgled at him threateningly, reminding him that he was once again out of food. He ignored it. It wouldn't be long now and he'd rather wait until he reached his uncle's place and free food then to try and cage anything from the other two. The thought of eating with his family gave him both a delighted and worried feeling and his stomach groaned again, this time in sympathy.

'Please Kami,' he thought, 'please have taught my cousin Kaoru how to cook.'

****

The Maiden

In the days since the sword incident Kaoru remained abed, recovering from her injuries. Kenshin hadn't allowed her to move any further than the grotto and then only with help. He'd coddled her, cleaned her clothes and bedding, fed her and of course medicated her. 

And she was really sick of it.

On the third morning she'd had enough of being treated like and invalid and prisoner. Having miraculously awakened before the dragon she decided to rebel, even if it was only in a small matter. Unaided she lurched to her feet and tottered off to the grotto on legs grown weak more from the bed rest then from any lingering illness. Once she had taken care of her most pressing needs she carefully looked over the pool area, mostly to make sure that the dragon hadn't sneaked in while she was busy. Satisfied that she was alone she quickly stripped, soaped up, rinsed off and stepped into the natural hot spring that the cave provided. 

"Ahhh." Muscles relaxed as she felt the hot water from her first full bath in days embrace her and for a few moments she allowed herself the luxury of forgetting her worries. Unfortunately a few moments were all she got before the dream that had woken her up early crept back into her mind. 

Kaoru sighed, wishing that she could just forget about it but she'd been having more or less the same dream every night since the first very silly one she'd had after learning Kenshin's name. Its shear repetitiveness would have bothered her even if the dream's content didn't disturb her as well. 

The dream was very simple in content. She would be sitting in her home, in the village, and there would be a pile of tiles on the table in front of her (except during the first dream when it had been a pile of rice). Each tile had a Kanji written on it and she would move them around until she had spelled out the dragon's human name. Then the Kanji would change and she would move them around again until she'd discovered Kenshin's dragon name. The first time she had found the name using the rice she'd been amused by what the letters had revealed and then had become angry when she'd woken up and found she couldn't remember it. 

The next two nights were different.

As before she would still spell out both his human and dragon name but after she was done the tiles would bleed away the black ink that the symbols were written in and new ones, this time in red would bubble up from the centre of each of them. Once the letters were rewritten the tiles would change shape and colour until they became like the scales that covered his body when he was a dragon. She would reach for the one closest to her but it would slither away from her hand and join the rest of the pile. Then they would all start moving. She would sit, waiting breathlessly until they finally slid to a stop and spelled out a name, one that she knew was also his and that had the power to frighten her so badly she would be yanked out of the dream between one breath and the next. 

Then she would get angry all over again.

And not just because she could never remember the names but because she was afraid of a bunch of letters that probably didn't say anything at all.

She sighed and moved her hands through the water and focused on watching the small waves she created lap against the sides of the pool. It was silly to get so worked up over a dream when she had a very real and solid thing to be angry and afraid of.

That of course being the dragon.

While he took very good care of her the constant fussing was starting to get on her nerves. Even worse was the fact that day by day he became more and more polite. He hid his thoughts behind a respectful demeanour leaving her without any knowledge of what he was planning to do with her. 

And that was where the fear came in.

****

The Dragon

Kenshin awoke in his dragon form in the larger caves and after a few large yawns and a good stretch he reached out with his mind to assure himself that Kaoru was still asleep. Instead he found her chi in the hot spring grotto. Swearing he shifted into his smaller human form and picked up the yukata he now always wore to and from his 'bedroom'. He gave it a shake to remove any sand that might be clinging to it and put it on, tying it shut as he headed into the tunnel that would take him directly to the bathing area and Kaoru.

He picked his way carefully through the tunnel as this back approach to the pool was a tight fit even for his somewhat petite human form. The zigzag course could also have a dizzying effect on anyone who tried to take it's twists and turns too quickly and the rocks and boulders that surrounded the tunnel's entry into the grotto made it difficult to get into the cave uninjured. It did however have the useful side affect of camouflaging the opening from a casual and sometimes even a searching gaze.

Kaoru wasn't going to like him showing up out of nowhere to send her back to bed. 

Kenshin smiled at the thought before carefully blanking his face and emotions. He knew he was driving her crazy but in a few more days she would be healthy enough that he could leave her for short periods of time while he searched out a new home for her and after that....

After that, she would be gone. 

****

The Dragon and the Maiden (in a required scene)

When the dragon in his human form appeared almost magically between the rocks at the back of the grotto Kaoru was just standing up to get out of the water. Both of them froze, although Kenshin's eyes moved freely and the blush that he could feel spreading across his face testified that he now had a deeper understanding of Kaoru's earlier embarrassment over his nudity.

Kaoru unfroze first and ducked back under the water. "You, you, you....."

"Gomen nasai Kaoru dono I did not mean to..." Kenshin started to say amazed at how calm and rational he managed to sound.

"YOU HENTAI," she yelled before looking around for something to throw at him. 

Kenshin realized that calm and rational weren't going to cut it. He also decided that Kaoru certainly looked fit enough to take a bath by herself (and yes, he realized just how cowardly that decision was). Making a leaping dash for the mouth of the larger tunnel Kenshin managed to make it to safety, more due to the fact that Kaoru couldn't figure out how to throw something at him without rising up out of the water then because of his speed.

As he made it to the exit he called out a, "breakfast will be ready soon Kaoru dono," to her and was thankful that he hadn't stopped to tell her that when he heard one of the water tubs land behind him and bounce off stone.

****

A Knight?

Sano had thought that returning to the village were he'd lived much of his early life would be a pleasant if not exciting time. However, the townspeople were acting very strangely and he didn't even have the dragon hunters to blame for the attitude. The two men had headed off to the home of the village's elder to talk business as soon as the three of them had arrived. 

Of course Sano hadn't expected the villagers to recognize him. He'd grown a lot in the last few years and had expected to be treated like a stranger. If the old lady who used to take care of him and Kaoru when they were young hadn't recognized him it might have stayed that way. 

At first he'd been a bit embarrassed by the attention. Her day to day memory was obviously going but her vocal cords weren't and the past was still strong in her mind. Five minutes of talking with her and the entire village not only knew who he was but they now had knowledge of at least three really embarrassing things he had done in his youth. As soon as the old lady let him go he had expected to be swamped with snickering townspeople come to see the idiot boy who had finally come home again. 

Being a stranger had definitely been better.

If he hadn't seen the people on the streets just minutes ago he would have thought the place was a ghost town. Everyone that could disappear had and everyone else was trying to pretend that they were invisible. Sano shook his head, bewildered and decided that he would just get himself to his uncle's place and maybe he or Kaoru could tell him what was going on.

****

Miso Soup as an Act of War

When Kaoru was certain she was alone again she quickly dried off and dressed before stalking down the tunnel to the kitchen. By the time she had arrived Kenshin had already started breakfast. The rice was cooking, the pickles were set out and the man shaped dragon was about to add some bonito to a pot of boiling water as the start of miso soup.

"Ohayou Gozaimasu Kaoru dono," he said respectfully and as if nothing had happened. 

"Ohayou Kenshin," she replied through not quite gritted teeth. In direct proportion to his politeness she had taken to speaking to him in a casual manner and shunned the use of an honorific with his name. 

As she stood there considering how to wreak her vengeance and watching Kenshin stirring the soup stock she fleetingly wondered just where a dragon would have learned to cook. 

And that thought led to her plan of revenge.

"Eh Kenshin, I'll finish up the soup while you deal with the rice and pickles."

The dragon opened his mouth to protest, closing it quickly at the look in her eyes. With a slight bow he backed away and relinquished the soup pot to her.

Giving the stock a quick taste Kaoru decided that it needed a little more of the bonito and picking up the block of dried fish cut some slices of it into the soup. She frowned a bit when instead of the flakes she was hoping for she ended up with misshaped chunks but they had already landed in the broth and she wasn't going to try to fish them out. She happily shredded some nori into what she hoped would be interesting shapes and dropped that in as well before locating the container of miso paste. After spooning in a healthy amount of the fermented bean paste and stirring vigorously she quickly sliced some daikon and dropped that in as well since she was tired of plain soup and there wasn't any tofu available. Finished she stared at the bubbling liquid, then put in a few more globs of the bean paste into it to give it a bit more body. She filled two bowls with the cloudy solution and undercooked radish and handed them to Kenshin who, saying nothing but looking like a man who was about to be escorted to his execution, placed them on the stacking trays with the rice and pickled eggplant. 

Kaoru smiled at the expression on the dragon's face and knew he had been watching. She had no illusions about her cooking and while she hadn't actually been trying to wreck the soup she knew that any food item she touched had a tendency to self-destruct. It may have been petty but if he was going to walk in on her bath then he was going to have to eat her cooking.

Sitting down at the table to eat Kenshin stared at his soup with concern. He'd kept an eye on Kaoru as she had finished with the miso and while he understood her need for revenge he wondered if the punishment wasn't worse then the crime. 

The sight of Kaoru naked and rising up out of the heated water sprang into his mind. He swallowed, hard, and successfully fought to suppress the blush that tried to reappear on his face. That memory, he decided, was worth any amount of bad food. 

Picking up his soup he proceeded, much to Kaoru's dismay, to drink down the salty, crunchy, thick mess as if it was the best thing he had ever eaten. 

****

A Knight?

When Sano found his uncle's home he began to wonder if he'd actually woken up this morning. Either he was still asleep and trapped in an odd little nightmare or someone was playing a very bad joke on him. 

Instead of the simple but well kept home he'd remembered he found a boarded up house with a dying garden. And worse than the state of the place was the fact that no one in the village would even look at it.

True there weren't many people on the streets at the moment but those that were out had the odd habit of sliding their glance over the house. It was as if they were doing their utmost to pretend that there was an empty lot where the dwelling stood. 

Sano turned suddenly and headed in the direction that the dragon hunters had gone. If he wanted to find out what the hell was going on then whoever was now head of the village would probably be his best chance for getting information. Although, if everyone hadn't been acting so strangely he would have just grabbed the first person he came to and started asking.

Sano quickly reached the house that he had seen the hunters enter and he wondered briefly if the old man he'd remembered as the elder was still presiding over the village. With a shrug he dismissed the thought as unimportant and started pounding on the door, adding an, "Oi, open up," in for good measure. 

The door slid slowly open to reveal a non descript middle-aged man and the two dragon hunters. The hunters, who had been ready to attack or defend (or run away), relaxed when they saw that the visitor was just the drifter that had travelled with them to this forsaken hole of a village.

Sano ignored the two hunters and stared at the person who'd opened the door. Here was a younger, blander version of the man that Sano had remembered running the town. Younger and no where near as intelligent if Sanosuke's memory of this man as a boy was anything to go by.

The village leader gulped at the sight of his belligerent guest and in a wavering voice asked him what he wanted.

"Glad you asked," Sano said as he kicked off his shoes and stepped into the house, closing the door behind him as he herded its owner back inside. "I don't know if you remember me but I used to live in this town when I was younger and I've come back to see my uncle and cousin." Sano looked hard into the man's face, willing him to remember. "The name is Sanosuke; my uncle and cousin are...."

"Koshijirou and Kaoru," the man said, almost whispering the names.

Sano felt as if he had been punched in the stomach at the look on the man's face. While he'd suspected bad news when he'd found his childhood home abandoned he'd hoped that it just meant that his kinsfolk had moved on to greener pastures. 

"What happened to them?" 

"Last winter was so very hard," the man, Yoichi, if Sano was remembering correctly, stuttered out. "The weather was a killing blow to several of the villagers, and not just the old and weak. Your uncle, while a strong man, experienced a weakening of the lungs and despite the best efforts of the village healer and his daughter they were unable to save him. He died just before the spring melt." 

"And Kaoru?" Sanosuke asked in a dead calm voice which given the man's sudden collapsing to his knees was far more terrifying then if he had yelled at him.

Face mashed against the floor Yoichi shuddered out the answer with each shake of his body. 

"The dragon took her."

"The....dragon?" Sano's head whirled at the thought of the young girl he had lived, played and fought with for so many years dieing in such a way. He wanted to grab the man at his feet and choke him until he took those words back and told him it was all a joke.

"Yes, a few days ago the dragon attacked the village and burned several of our fields. When your cousin rushed out to help put out the fires he grabbed her and flew off," Yoichi sneaked a look at Sano to gauge his reaction, which seemed to be one of shock and some guilt. "We tried to follow," he whined, "but the creature was too fast for us and we've never been able to find it's lair."

Sano turned and slammed the sliding door open with such force that the wood frame shattered all along one end of it. He stuffed his feet into his shoes and then looked back at the hunters who were busy looking from the broken door to him in amazed disbelief. 

"Where were you two when the dragon grabbed you?" He asked in a low growl. The hunters look at each other before Kanbe, who was the largest of the pair gave a shrug and said, "about half way up the mountain to the east." 

Sano gave a curt nod of thanks before stalking away. He hadn't gone more than a few feet before he heard the two men he had followed to this village following him. 

"East is that way." Tokuma, the smaller, slightly smarter member of the duo told him as he pointed in the direction opposite from where Sano was heading.

Sano snarled and continued the way he had been going.

The two dragon hunters looked at each other and gave a shrug before following after the very angry young man.

****

The Village

Yoichi watched, relieved, as Sanosuke left. If everyone kept his or her mouths shut then that dangerous young man would never know what had really happened to his cousin. He glanced at the ruined door and imagined it being his body, which it certainly would have been if he'd told Sano that he and the villagers had sacrificed Kaoru to the dragon.

The boy would never have understood that it had been the only thing they could do. And it had worked too. There had been no sight of the dragon for days and as long as Sanosuke or the hunters didn't stumble across it then it might not ever come back. 

Yoichi grabbed the broken door and attempted to force it to move along its track. He jump back alarmed when, with a strange crackling noise, the rest of the frame exploded in a rain of splinters. He stared at what amounted to a pile of sawdust in his hand, sawdust that had just moments before been part of the frame he'd been holding onto at the time of its collapse.

Spilling the wood dust to the floor he thought it was funny how fast a person could change their minds about something. 

He hoped Sanosuke would find the dragon. He might actually stand a chance of killing the thing and if he didn't..... 

Then the dragon would make certain that that dangerous boy never found out the truth. 

****

A Knight!

Sanosuke may have had a bad sense of direction but even he knew which way east was from his home village. He would head that way eventually but first he had a couple of stops to make.

The first was to see his uncle.

He'd always hated the small plot of ground where the village buried their dead. Oh it was pleasant enough in its own way but the life of a peasant can be hard and he had lost his parents and too many childhood friends to illness and accidents to feel comfortable in the place where they were hidden away from those that still lived. Still the place, like the village, was small and it didn't take him long to find his uncle's resting-place. 

Reading the marker his sense of guilt swelled up and almost swept him away. Koshijirou had died just a few weeks after Sanosuke had started to feel the need to return to Japan. Oh, he knew that even if he'd raced back right then he wouldn't have been able to help his uncle but if he'd paid attention to the call when he should have he could have been here for his cousin in her grief. He might even have been able to keep her safe from the dragon. He glanced down at the base of the marker and saw a small posy of dead flowers and felt his heart squeeze in pain as he realized that Kaoru must have placed them there shortly before she had been killed. The pain crystallized into a hard, sharp anger and he clenched his fists, desperately needing to hit something. Instead he gave a short anguished yell and headed to his uncle's home for the other thing he needed. 

He didn't bother with the main house and instead went to the small storage shed out back where he had left some of his belongings before leaving home. He worried briefly that Koshijirou or Kaoru might have gotten rid of the thing during the time he'd been gone but the worry proved groundless.

During his younger years he had briefly considered being a blacksmith. That had lasted just long enough for him to create the weapon that he now reclaimed from a pile of old planks and broken bamboo wash poles. Pulling the canvas wrapping away from it he was relieved to see that the oil and covering had been enough to keep the blade from deteriorating too much and he was sure that it would be sound enough for what he had to do. 

The two ignored and practically forgotten dragon hunters stood in front of the shed waiting for their former travelling companion. Both of them took a step back when Sano came out carrying a sword that looked large enough to cut through a mountain top much less a dragon. Sanosuke grimaced at the two men with what was supposed to have been a smile and turning east went off to test how well a sword designed to go through a horse and rider would work on a dragon. 

End of Part 6


	7. Part Seven

****

Warning: This is a fusion of Rurouni Kenshin, Vivian Vande Velde's Dragon's Bait and several other dragon and maiden books and movies. If you don't like, don't read.

Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin. I also do not own Vivian Vande Velde's Dragon's Bait, Patricia C Wrede's Dealing with Dragon's and it's many sequels, Dragonheart, Dragonslayer, any fairy tales that may pop up or the dragon and princess book that I read in grade four that I no longer remember the name of (Although it may or may not have been called 'The Dragon's Princess'). In other words if you recognize it (and possibly even if you don't) then I don't own it. So live with it, because I do. RK and the other stories are the property of their respective owners. I'm just writing this for fun (it's fanfiction, it's supposed to be fun) and will make no money from it. Please do not sue me. You really wouldn't get anything anyway.

Summary: Kaoru's the maiden, guess who the dragon is.

Author's note: Finally a new chapter. And yes I am evil, sorry.

****

The Dragon and the Maiden

By Colleen

Part 7

****

The Maiden

Kaoru still couldn't believe that he'd had a second helping of the soup.

She also wasn't sure if she should be angry with him for foiling her revenge or if she should just be amazed that anyone could have eaten more than one bowl of the stuff. Even she'd had trouble finishing hers and she was used to her own cooking. 

She looked over at Kenshin, watching to see if he might suddenly bolt for a nearby bush to be sick behind but to no avail. He retained his normal healthy look and was busy adding pieces of clothing and bedding to the wash tub that he had set up by the waterfall fed pool. The only thing she could think was that even when in human form he must still have the digestive fortitude of the dragon he also was.

Oh well even if the soup didn't work at least he'd consented to let her go outside. 

Kaoru snorted at the thought. She wasn't sure that she considered being bundled up and deposited on a futon covered square of ground much of an improvement over being in the cave. In fact she was pretty sure the dragon had allowed it only because he could then keep an eye on her while doing the laundry. Still, the fresh air felt good in her lungs and she hadn't realized just how much she'd missed the heat of the sun against her skin. 

However even the charm of looking at something other than stone walls eventually had to wear off and Kaoru found her attention drawn once again to the dragon. After a few minutes of watching him scrub and rinse she realized that this was the first time she had been able to study Kenshin when he wasn't completely focused on her alone. Sure there was nothing earth shattering about watching someone doing the laundry but he seemed so different while he did it. In fact if she hadn't known what he really was she would have thought of him as a good natured, and yes, good-looking young man who liked to help out with the household chores. 

Once again she wondered just where and why a dragon, even one that could look human, would have learned to cook and do laundry. And how would she have reacted to him if he were just human? What would it be like if the dragon did not exist and there was just Kenshin?

Her breath hitched in her throat and a pain that she had never experienced before caused her heart to lurch as it hit her square in the chest. She moaned slightly and then gasped as she felt a pair of hands grab her by the shoulders and looked up, startled to find Kenshin staring at her with concern. 

"Kaoru dono perhaps you have had enough fresh air for one day."

"No, no, I'm fine." 

The dragon didn't look like he would be believing that anytime soon but Kaoru waved him off. 

"I'm fine, please just continue with what you are doing, besides if I go back in I'll probably just end up making lunch to keep busy." Kaoru held her breath, hoping that the threat of more of her cooking would deter the dragon from sending her back inside.

The dragon froze for a moment before pasting a pleasant look on his face. "I would like to try more of your cooking but I don't want you to over do it. If you're sure that you are fine then perhaps it would be best if you stayed out here until I'm done with the laundry."

Kaoru nodded and gave Kenshin a tight little smile before he headed back to his chore. She didn't know what that burst of pain was but it didn't feel physical. In fact it felt almost spiritual, as if she had brushed up against some part of her soul without knowing it and found it too fragile to touch. 

Why the hell would thinking about Kenshin cause that to happen?

****

The Dragon

Kenshin continued to scrub at the laundry but it was with only part his attention as he made sure to centre all of his ki reading ability on Kaoru. He didn't know what was wrong but he knew a gasp of pain when he heard it and he split his attention off even further from the wash so he could worry about it. 

He had planned to tell her that he would be leaving her alone tomorrow while he searched for a new place for her to live but now he wasn't sure that that would be such a good idea. Maybe he should wait just a little longer. Two or three days wouldn't matter too much in the long run. 

He looked fully at Kaoru and she gave him a little nod before turning her attention to a butterfly that had decided to land on her sleeve. She smiled sweetly at the brightly coloured insect and as beautiful as its' wings were they were nothing compared to that smile.

Maybe it would be better to wait a week?

Kenshin felt guilt stab through him and he knew that he wouldn't be waiting any longer then the next day. His thoughts of delay weren't due to any worry for Kaoru. Rather they were stemmed from his desire to keep her, a desire that he thought he'd already dealt with. 

He knew that she couldn't stay here. Not only would it not be safe for her but also what kind of a life would it be for either of them? She was human and he wasn't and while he could take on the form and was comfortable enough in it he knew that their differences would always be between them. 

Of course his parents had managed to work around that problem but they were a special case and given that they had died together at the hands of dragon hunters he didn't think they were an example that he should follow. 

Besides his father and mother had loved each other at first sight and while he wouldn't admit to himself he had fallen the same way for Kaoru those many months ago he felt that Kaoru was only tolerating his presence. If she had been free and well enough to leave she would have long ago and as much as he might want that to be different it wasn't. 

He would tell her today, right now, and he would ask her if there were any places, any towns or villages other than her own where she might like to live. He would check those ones over first thing tomorrow and then spread out from there. 

"Kaoru dono?" He asked, pulling her attention away from the half a dozen butterflies that were now visiting her. 

"Yes?"

He opened his mouth and felt it freeze open when the air behind him give a little twist and he noticed Kaoru staring in amazement at something that had appeared at his back. 

Oh, please, he thought, don't let it be...

"Baka deshi are you going to introduce me to the young lady or do I have to do it myself?"

Kenshin looked back to see Hiko Seijuro, his godfather and teacher, waiting patiently for an answer.

Oh crap.

****

The Knight

If Sano hadn't felt as if his guts had been ripped out and danced on he would have found a good deal of amusement with the fact that the two men he had needed to follow home were now content to plod along after him. Instead the only thoughts he had were for the creature that he hoped to destroy and how to do it. 

He stopped suddenly and managed to hold his ground when the two hunters behind him failed to notice in time and ran into him. 

"What?" Kanbe asked, frowning at the fighter.

"I just thought that maybe I should know what you know about the dragon," Sano replied. "Given your recent close encounter with the thing I thought you might have some idea about how to go about killing it. I was also wondering what happened to your equipment as I can't see either of you being willing to go up against this thing with nothing more than the knives that I know you're carrying."

Kanbe looked startled at Sano's statement about the knives but Tokuma stopped any reply the near giant would have made with a wave of his hand. 

"You're absolutely right about the equipment; it is currently stored in a small cave part way up the mountain. We thought it best to scout the area for the dragon without hauling around a harpoon system and spears."

Now it was Sano's turn to frown. "You mean your going after this thing without knowing for sure that you're weapons are still there and in good enough shape to use? Che, just how much are they paying you for this job anyway?"

The two hunters looked at each other with something like guilty knowledge and Sano casually move the zanbatou into a more useable position. Whatever the amount was it must have been huge to get these two whiners back and even though he hadn't lived there for quite a few years he still didn't want to see his village bled dry by the two hunters.

Tokuma gave a little laugh and held his hands up as if to ward off anything Sano might do. "Actually since we had already been paid for the job we told the village elder that we would attempt it again for no extra charge." He smiled at Sano in such a way that the fighter knew the other man was actually telling the truth, but only a very small part of it.

He didn't believe for a moment that these two wouldn't normally do anything like take another try at the dragon for no extra gain. Something was most definitely going on but he suspected it would take more time then he wanted to waste to get anything out of them. 

"Tell me everything you know about that dragon and how we can kill it," he said as he turned and started up the mountain trail once again.

"Of course, of course," Tokuma replied and as they continued their trek up the mountain he started to do just that.

****

The Idiots...er, Hunters

Damn that boy isn't as stupid as he looks, Tokuma thought as he gave the fighter an edited run down of their last meeting with the dragon and what they had learned. Which was very little.

Other than the size of the creature he kept the physical description of the thing to a minimum. Just because everyone in the village hadn't figured out the importance of this dragon didn't mean that the kid wouldn't, especially since he had obviously been outside of the village for quite a few years. 

There was far, far to much money riding on this kill and given the trouble that that scaly son of a bitch had already put them through there was no way they were going to share. The kid could have his revenge; they were going to get the cash. 

End of Part Seven


End file.
